Water has been in the news a lot lately, from California’s historic megadrought, to this month’s five-year anniversary of the Macondo Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Not all of it is grim, however. Boyan Slat, a 20-year-old Dutch engineering student, has designed a passive filtration system for the ocean’s garbage patches which, he says, can clear hundreds of millions of pounds of plastic from the ocean over the next 10 years while minimally impacting the wildlife population.

Are you looking for some way to continue your education over the summer? Want some background noise for those hot evenings spent lesson planning or soldering your robot together? It’s About Time put together a great roundup of engineering and education (and engineering education!) podcasts to keep your ears happy and your mind active.

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Trajan’s Column, completed in 113CE, is a masterpiece of Roman art and engineering. It has stood for more than 1900 years intact as the rest of the Roman Forum crumbled around it. The tower comprises 29 blocks of solid marble each weighing from 29-77 tons. Each marble drum had windows and a staircase allowing access to the top pulled into place by an elaborate pulley system. Watch this stop-motion video by National Geographic on how it was made in ancient times. For even more insight, watch the artists’ making-of video.

Last week, NASA released two videos of taking a GoPro on walkabouts (or, extravehicular activities—EVAs for short) in space. Ever wondered what it’s like to cling to the side of the International Space Station as it zips around Earth in orbit at 8km per second? The views are out of this world! (Sorry.) See the longer NASA-released videos from EVA number 30 and EVA number 31 and even further extended footage.

Easter was a few weeks ago, which means that stores are selling leftover candy at deeply discounted prices. You might just have a few stale Peeps left at the bottom of your basket, even after a few healthy rounds of Peep jousting. If so, why not try an experiment? This video shows a fun and tasty way to calculate the elusive Speed of Light equation using marshmallow Peeps and a microwave.